Whether investigating human rights abuses, money laundering, or even public officials’ conflicts of interests, reporters are increasingly developing their own databases for investigative projects. Here are a series of tips drawn from the experiences of a number of international journalists and from the author’s personal experience gathering and creating data sets for investigative stories.
Here’s how three Mexican investigative journalists have used public information requests to aid their reporting on drug trafficking and the government’s fight against it.
High vaccination rates in some parts of the world are helping to curb the spread of COVID-19 and allowing communities to resume normal life. But vaccinations can also give a false sense of security, with new variants threatening to prolong the pandemic. Our NodeXL mapping from June 28 to July 4, found Portuguese newspaper Público creating a tool to help readers find out what activities they can do after getting the vaccine at minimal risk. In this edition, we also take a look at a piece examining forest fires in Mexico, an analysis of the worst cyberattacks by Bloomberg, and a lively data-driven essay on same-gender lyrics by The Pudding.
Columbia Journalism School’s Dart Center offers resources and tools for journalists coping with stress and trauma, from self-care to harassment. And some tips for newsroom managers.
For many investigations — especially those involving corporations, or institutions in the West — the final step is to send a letter that sets out your findings and urges a response. Here, several investigative reporters share their tips on how to deal with obstructive subjects and ensure fairness — including fairness for dangerous governments that cannot be alerted to your findings before publication.
The 2021 Global Investigative Journalism Conference is this November 1-5, and for the first time, we’re doing it all online. The conference is the seminal international event in investigative journalism, featuring practical panels and workshops on the latest investigative techniques, data analysis, online research, cross-border collaboration, and more by the best journalists in the field. Since 2001, we’ve trained over 8,000 reporters, sparked headline-making collaborations, and spread investigative reporting worldwide.
The Reporter is known in Taiwan for its in-depth investigative stories. The team behind it recently launched a podcast, which surged into the charts soon after it was launched. Here host Jason Liu and producer Lan Wanchen tell GIJN about their experience in making podcasts related to investigative journalism and their tips for making a program that audiences want to listen to.
More than 130 journalists were killed in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Honduras in the years between 2011 and 2020, many of them attacked while investigating political issues, corruption, and organized crime. RSF has analyzed the attacks and found that half of the journalists had received threats related to their work.
With less than a month until the start of the Olympic Games, host country Japan’s slow vaccination campaign is causing concern. Our NodeXL mapping from June 21 to 27 found a piece by The New York Times looking at Japan’s efforts to combat the pandemic in the run-up to a global sporting event. In this edition, we also feature a joint investigation by ProPublica and The New York Times into Chinese propaganda on the internet, a herd immunity calculator by German newspaper Zeit, and revelations from the Guardian about abusive posts on social media targeting English soccer players.
A recent report published by the Forum on Information & Democracy’s Working Group on the Sustainability of Journalism says the journalism industry is experiencing a “potential extinction event” as the certainties (chiefly the advertising-supported model) under which journalism operated for 40 to 50 years continues to fall away.
